Tequila Sunrise

In the fall of 1995 I completed my first two credit courses at Tunxis after giving up in two previous years. The first course was sociology in which I got an A. The second course was Composition in which I got a C. This Composition professor was new, strange, challenging and inspiring. He wore baggy khaki pants with grandpa cardigans over button down plaid shirts with Nike's and smoked Marlborough Reds down to the nub in the courtyard right before class while he chatted with students like myself eager to soak up what we could from this new strange intellectual from Texas.

Having a conversation about short story writing outside the 200 building before class one day as the Marb Red was burning dangerously close to his fingers, I lamented about a floppy disc of stories and poems (this was the mid nineties remember) I had either written in or right after high school that I had misplaced. I was particularly upset about losing a story I had written in the second person Ala Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis entitled "Tequila Sunrise". I don't remember exactly how the story went but it was something about a Wall Street type asshole drinking and womanizing and being caught in an inescapable pattern of alcoholism and abuse. Anyway, I couldn't express my dismay enough and was looking to my professor to offer some suggestions on how to recreate this legend in my mind. What happened next changed my entire way of thinking about art and life. My professor raised his hand to point for emphasis, ashes flying, and Steve Ersinghaus said the following words to me:

I think it's a great thing that you lost that story,
you don't even know what better stories you may still have inside
you.

Fifteen years later I am still trying to find out if I have any better stories inside me. Thank you, professor, for making me think maybe I do, even after all this time away from the great lettuce head. I hope to do you proud in this project.